“I guess so,” she agreed tonelessly. “I didn’t think about it that way. I had no one I could turn to.”
“If you’re telling the whole truth,” said Shayne, “the letters are probably forgeries. We can prove that easily enough if we can get a sample of Morrison’s handwriting.”
“I’ve told you the truth,” she said, “but they aren’t forgeries.”
“How do you know?”
“I took them to a handwriting expert, a man named Bernard Holloway who is supposed to be very good. I had a note of Mr. Morrison’s for comparison. One he sent with a wedding present. Mr. Holloway made a long report listing a number of similarities, and concluded with a definite statement that there was no doubt that the letters were written by the same person.”
“Holloway is good,” he told her. “One of the best in the country. His testimony has a lot of weight in any court. Now why is your ex-employer trying to frame you? Would he be interested in ten grand?”
“Mr. Morrison? Why, he’s several times a millionaire.”
“Then why?”
“Do you think he-arranged it? On purpose?”
“What else am I supposed to think?” Shayne asked angrily. “If he actually wrote the letters, though you claim there was nothing between you-”
“There wasn’t,” she interrupted desperately. “Ever. He was kind and generous and quite friendly, but there was never anything like that. I swear there wasn’t.”
Shayne was thoughtfully silent for a moment, then asked, “Could he have harbored a secret passion for you? Perhaps he wrote the letters to let off steam and someone got hold of them and realized how they could be used after you married a wealthy man.”
“Oh no!” she exclaimed, her cheeks flaming again. “I’m very sure Mr. Morrison never had a single thought like that about me. He’s quite happily married.”
“To a wife he’s planning to get rid of?” Shayne said sardonically. “All right-what do you make of it?”
“I don’t. What can I think? It’s utterly incomprehensible.”
“We’ll have to get in touch with him at once,” Shayne said with sudden decision. “With his denial, and with the testimony of people who knew you both that you weren’t having an affair, we should be able to tell your husband everything and squelch the blackmailer.”
“I’ve tried to get in touch with Mr. Morrison,” Christine admitted through trembling lips. “I’ve called him twice and left my number both times. When he didn’t call back as I requested, I didn’t know what to think.”
“Perhaps the long distance operator made a mistake.”
“Not long distance,” she told him. “Mr. Morrison is here.”
“In Miami? Wait a minute.” Shayne stared hard at her. “What’s he doing here?”
“Why, he and Mrs. Morrison are down for the season. They have a winter home here, but they haven’t opened it for several years.”
“How long have they been here?”
“A couple of weeks,” she faltered.
Shayne’s lean face hardened. “So, he followed you down here a couple of weeks after your marriage.”
“No. It wasn’t that. I’m sure it wasn’t.”
“It may look like that to your husband,” Shayne said with disgust. “All we need to make things perfect is someone to testify that he was in the habit of visiting you in your apartment while those letters were supposedly being written.”
Christine looked frightened and forlorn as she breathed, “I was going to tell you about that. You see, he did take me out to dinner twice, and I asked him up for a drink afterward-once. He was just being kind to me,” she went on desperately. “It isn’t what you think. His wife knew about it. In fact, he told me that she urged him to keep me from being too lonely.”
“He told you she did,” Shayne raged. “If you’re telling the truth this begins to look like one of the goddamndest frame-ups I ever ran into.” He got up and began striding up and down the room, ruffling his bristly red hair. “He must have planned the whole thing,” he growled. “Arranged to have those notes planted here and then sent the men to find them. The new maid explains that very neatly. Natalie. She’d been with you only a couple of weeks. And it supplies a motive for her death. She knew too much and may have threatened to blab.”
“I can’t believe it. Mr. Morrison was always a perfect gentleman in my presence.”
Shayne disregarded her, continuing to stride up and down while he filled out his vague theory. “Morrison wouldn’t be interested in blackmail, but that’s unimportant. One of his stooges could have had the photostats made on the side for his own purposes. It’s likely Morrison knows nothing about that angle.”
“But if the man was going to return the originals-”
“What makes you think he was going to?”
She looked up at him, wide-eyed. “He promised. Just as soon as I paid the ten thousand dollars.”
Shayne made a derisive gesture and snorted, “So, he promised.” He stopped beside her chair and asked, “Do you have those photostats?”
“Yes.”
“Get them for me.”
She hesitated, then asked miserably, “Do you have to see them? They’re so-I hate to have anyone read them.”
“Get them,” he commanded. His eyes were bleak. “I’m in this deeper than you are already. And call Mrs. Morgan up here,” he added. “I want to know more about those three men who found the letters.”
Christine got up and walked across the room and pressed a button. Then she disappeared through the door into her bedroom.
Shayne lit another cigarette and stood in the center of the floor scowling meditatively. He didn’t know whether to believe Christine or not. He wanted to believe her. For her husband’s sake if for no other reason. There had been adoration in Leslie Hudson’s eyes while he was kneeling beside his wife trying to revive her from unconsciousness. And there was another angle he hadn’t covered, Shayne remembered.
As Christine re-entered the room with an envelope in her hand, he turned on her and asked, “That telephone call this morning-Was it the same man who called before?”
“I think so. He sounded as though he were still drunk. He said, ‘So you want the letters to go to your husband, eh? Okay.’ And that’s the last I remember,” she added simply. “Coming on top of the news of Natalie’s murder it was more than I could stand. My husband thinks-” She stopped and blushed, the faint crimson spreading to the edge of her dark hair which was brushed back from her face, and pinking her ear lobes.
Shayne grinned. “Let him keep on thinking for a while. And Painter, too,” he added cagily. “He’ll be easier on you that way.” He held out his hand and she silently handed him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Leslie Hudson on a typewriter and bearing a special delivery stamp.
She said, “No wonder Phyl was so happy with you, Michael. You understand everything,” and sank into her chair.
As Shayne opened the envelope a knock sounded on the door. Christine called, “Come,” and Mrs. Morgan entered.
Shayne drew four stiff photostats from the envelope. The first one was inscribed, to, “My own dearest one.” Four sets of initials were scribbled across the left-hand margin. He studied them intently. The first was “B. J. H.”; followed by “T. R” “A. B.”; and “M. M.” The first set of initials was in bold and flowing script; the second shaky and almost unintelligible; the A and B were in small, neat letters, and the last painstakingly formed.
He turned to Mrs. Morgan and asked, “Are these your initials on the bottom?”
She moved over beside him and glanced at the note, then her calm eyes glanced aside inquiringly at Christine before she said, “Yes, sir,” when Christine nodded her approval.
Christine said, “Tell Mr. Shayne everything he asks you, Maria. He’s going to help me.”
An expression of stern apprehension crossed her placid face. She said, “I was that frightened when they made me sign them. I didn’t know what to do. The police,” she en
ded almost in a whisper.
Shayne said, “Even if they were the police, Mrs. Morgan, they had no right at all to enter a private house without a search warrant. Remember that in the future. Now, I want you to describe the men to me as best you can. Do you remember which one signed his initials first?”
“I do,” she said in her soft though solid voice. “He was the big one, and the best-dressed of the three. He was about fifty, I’d say, with gray hair and what you might call a ruddy complexion. He had broad shoulders and a bit of a stomach.”
“And the second one-T. R.”
“He’s the one who found the letters. As I told Christine, if I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes I’d never have believed it. He was almost as tall as you, Mr. Shayne, but he looked lean and sickly and had dark eyes that were away back in his head. He had been drinking and his hands shook. From things he said, I took him for a reporter. He said something about what a swell story the letters would make when they were printed.”
Shayne nodded casually, but a smoldering fire ate at his tight belly muscles. As soon as he saw those initials he recognized them as Timothy Rourke’s, and Mrs. Morgan’s description confirmed the knowledge he had tried desperately to put away from him. He had known for many weeks that Tim was still very ill from the wounds he had received, but he could not believe Tim was mixed up in a blackmailing scheme. His gaunt face hardened. Tim had been one of the best friends Shayne had ever had in Miami. But there was no shadow of a doubt that Natalie Briggs had held an earnest, almost frantic conversation with Rourke at the Play-Mor Club last night.
“And the third man?” Shayne asked Mrs. Morgan flatly.
“He was the policeman-the one who showed me his badge and pushed in when I didn’t want them to come in the door. He was dressed very shabbily in a gray suit and a hat not fit for a fishing trip.”
Shayne glanced at all four of the photostats to check the same sets of initials on the margins of each. He didn’t read them carefully, but a cursory glance assured him they were all written in the mushy style Christine had described. Replacing them in the envelope, he said, “Mrs. Morgan, you were not asleep last night when Natalie came in. I’m afraid your alibi of sound sleeping won’t work if the autopsy proves she was killed near the time I rang the doorbell and you answered.”
Mrs. Morgan retained her calm, impassive manner. She said, “I heard nothing, Mr. Shayne, except the ringing of the doorbell. Natalie must have been murdered after I retired, or the commotion, if any, was far enough away so that I wouldn’t hear it.”
The woman turned away and left the room.
Christine gasped. “Surely you don’t think Mrs. Morgan-”
Shayne said harshly, “I think Mrs. Morgan would protect you against anything and everything if she could.”
“But murder-” Her eyes were filled with horror.
“I have a couple of leads,” he told her. “You’ll have to trust me, and try not to worry. If I’ve guessed this setup correctly you have no need to fear that the original letters will be shown to your husband. You’ll probably receive another call from the blackmailer. Stall him if you do. Tell him you’re trying to raise the money and try to arrange a rendezvous with him. In the meantime, I’ll be working on every angle.”
“But-Maria,” she wailed “You can’t think Mrs. Morgan had anything to do with Natalie’s-death.”
Shayne whirled toward her on his way to the door. He said, “Here, take these and keep them for the time being. If we have to raise money on them-then we’ll have to.” He caught one of her hands and poured the string of pearls into her palm, squeezed her fingers over it, and hurried from the room.
Chapter Seven: COMPLICATED COINCIDENCES
Shayne suddenly realized that he didn’t have much time in which to cancel his reservation on the noon plane. He found the faithful taxi driver asleep in the cab when he reached it. There was a chance he might have his old apartment for the night, and he shook the driver awake, gave him the address and got in.
The driver yawned, sat erect and looked at his clock. “Golly, Mister-”
“I’ll make it worth your while. Step on it.”
“You bet,” the driver said, and shot forward.
The clerk, the same anemic young man who had been at the desk when Shayne had checked out said, “Oh, Mr. Shayne, you’re back.”
“How about my apartment for tonight?” Shayne asked.
“But we’ve already sent your suitcase to the airport,” he said. “I thought-”
“The apartment,” Shayne said, “can I have it?”
“Oh, yes. We haven’t had a call for it-yet. Have you got a case in Miami?” The clerk leaned his elbows on the counter and his pale blue eyes were alight.
“Sort of.” He reached in his pocket and brought out a half dollar, tossed it to the young man and said, “Thanks. I want to send a telegram.”
“Sure, Mr. Shayne.” The youth shoved a pad of yellow sheets across the counter.
Shayne used the counter’s scratchy pen in an ink bottle to write a telegram to Lucy Hamilton. It read: Missed noon plane but hope to make it this midnight. Keep on stalling Belton.
He called the airport and cancelled his reservation on the noon plane and asked for space on the night flight. The airline was distinctly cool and refused a definite commitment, suggesting instead that he call a couple of hours before he was ready to leave, or be at the port when the plane was scheduled to go. There were often last minute cancellations.
Shayne hung up, went to the kitchen and was putting ice cubes in a tall glass before he remembered there wasn’t a drink in the apartment. His last bottle of cognac was packed in the suitcase which was at the airport.
He dumped the ice cubes into the sink and went back to the living-room, pulling the photostats from his pocket as he went. Settling himself in a chair, he began reading them. It was impossible to tell in what order they had been written. After shuffling through them, he read the one on top.
Wednesday night
My very own sweet,
I simply have to talk to you tonight, darling. The office was a hell of loneliness today. It seems months instead of days since you left.
The new girl is competent, but I miss you so terribly. Today I was dictating and she sat across from me in your chair, and I must have been dreaming, for in the middle of a letter I said, “You have the most beautiful eyes in the world, Love,” and she looked up and snickered and said, “Does that go in the letter?” I laughed it off, but-you know you have, dearest.
I must see you!!! I will call you from the office tomorrow. You know I dare not call from here with the extension upstairs.
Something will work out. There must be some way to get rid of her so we can be together-forever.
All my love, Vicky
Shayne sighed and laid the note aside, sat for a moment with a deep frown between his eyes, then read the next one.
Monday morning, 4 a.m.
My sweetest love,
I cannot sleep. I cannot think. I am sitting here alone in my room with the connecting door locked so my wife can’t disturb me. She was asleep when I came in half an hour ago. I’m sure she doesn’t suspect I was with you.
I cannot give you up. You must know that. Not after tonight. I keep thinking of the plan you suggested. I see no other way. But we must be very careful. For your dear sake, there must be no breath of scandal.
It can’t be wrong to love as we love one another. It can’t be wrong to take whatever steps are necessary to fulfill our love.
I won’t write any more tonight-though I won’t sleep. I shall go to bed and in the darkness you will come to me. Your soft white body-
I love you with all my heart,
Vicky
Shayne wriggled in his chair, cleared his throat, and sat up straight. The damned letters made his throat dry, and he wished to God he had a drink.
No wonder Christine was prepared to go to any lengths to keep the letters from her husband. No man in his right mi
nd could laugh off this sort of evidence. What sort of man was Victor Morrison that he could write a series of notes like this and plant them on a girl who had not been his sweetheart? If Christine was telling the truth, it was the most fantastic plot he had ever bumped into.
Right now, he wasn’t at all sure Christine was telling the truth. He had been lied to by other women in other cases, but never before had he listened to and read evidence so extraordinary as this.
He unfolded the third photostat with a distinct feeling of nausea.
Thursday evening
Dear heart,
It was beautiful to hear your sweet voice over the telephone today but I didn’t dare speak what was in my heart.
You mustn’t go on with it, darling. I implore you to be patient a little longer. Just a little longer. I promise you I will go through with the plan we discussed. I am already arranging the details. If you do anything hasty now it will be the end of everything for us.
I beg you to trust me. I live only until I can be with you again-and soon nothing will keep us apart.
Your own Vicky
The fourth and last letter appeared to have been written previous to any of the three Shayne had read.
Friday afternoon
My dearest love,
I am sitting here in my office and sunlight is slanting through the Venetian blinds across the empty chair at the corner of my desk.
I feel desolated and utterly lonely. I suppose you were right when you made the decision to go. Things could not possibly continue as they were any longer, and you were right, as you will always be. My wife was becoming suspicious, and now that you are gone she will stop nagging me about my secretary.
But oh, my dear, there is a terrible emptiness in my heart. This cannot be the end. I must see you soon. I realize you cannot go on being satisfied with the crumbs of my love, and I swear I will somehow arrange to make it possible for you to have all of me.
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